


Catholicon

by underoriginal



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Claire-centric, Gen, but more catholic, claire is terrifying, claire temple has powers, i appreciate the fact that the word catholicon exists, it's a synonym for panacea, more loosely connected one shots than actual chapters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-19
Updated: 2016-04-19
Packaged: 2018-06-03 03:42:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6595189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/underoriginal/pseuds/underoriginal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Claire Temple, with superpowers. Really terrifying superpowers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Physician, heal thyself.

Oddly enough, that's the one thing Claire can't do. She still has the shaving scars around her ankles and her left wrist aches in the rain after she broke it when she was eight. But, she's worked in the ER for a long time. She doesn't use her powers much because honestly it isn't her say who lives and who dies. That and they're kinda wasted on healing chest pains and hangovers.

Claire is a smart woman, even gifted, though she doesn't call herself that. Dedicated, selfless. All those nice words. So, a lot of the time, well meaning friends and family and not as well meaning strangers off the street ask her why she isn't a doctor. She laughs and tells them that she prefers to be closer to her patients or that nurses know more anyway. She doesn't tell them the real reason.

First, do no harm.

Claire's never broken a promise once in her life, but then again, she's never dug a blind vigilante out of the trash can before. Anyone else would have said it was a miracle that he was still standing the same night. Claire doesn't like using her powers openly, she doesn't like the idea of men in suits breathing down her neck, but the man is half dead in a dumpster. He gets better pretty quickly. She makes sure of it. She watches the news next morning and sees that he managed to save that kid.

Somewhere, she knows that a family is weeping for joy. She smiles to herself, stirs milk into her morning coffee, and doesn't take any credit. Credit leads to attention she doesn't want.

She gets attention anyway. Russian attention. Tying her up and beating her up and she laughs when the Devil of Hell's Kitchen comes to save her, laughs until she thinks her ribs might break. They don't break. 

"Come on," Mike whispers. "Let's get you home." He sounds quieter now, more human.

Claire shakes her head, rattled to her bones. "Shouldn't we give them first aid?" she asks.

"They'll survive," Mike says.

Claire makes sure they do, out of respect for him. One will never walk again and another will be plagued by joint pain for the rest of his life. A third is impotent, a fourth will lose his memory. One will struggle with weight problems for the rest of a life significantly shortened by heart disease. But they all survive.

She wants to leave, wants to get out, but the violence in the city gets worse by the day and the hospital is flooded and maybe she isn't as discreet as she should be but no one is going to complain too much if they can move someone out of a hospital bed and back onto the streets to get shot up again, hopefully when they actually have beds open. Shot or blown up. 

One guy, a reporter, he gets strangled to death and Claire decides she just has to stay.

That gets pretty hairy when she's summoned to check up on a badly injured Wilson Fisk. She's let into the prison cell where they're holding him. It's a lot more heavily guarded than the first one they tried keeping him in. She wonder how they'll transport him. She pokes and prods at his injuries, which gives her time to be creative.

A week after Fisk moves into prison, a ring of tumors encircle his throat. The next day, he falls ill with blood poisoning. Then, his nerves go out of control, wracking him with tremors. He's on death's doorstep when Claire visits him again, looks down on him, pale and sickly, and tells him softly, gently, that he's very lucky Daredevil wanted him alive.

No one calls it an act of God when Wilson Fisk heals, which is all for the best. Claire doesn't think she would have been able to keep a straight face.

First, do no harm. It's a law every doctor swears by.

Too bad Claire's not a doctor.


	2. Chapter 2

Claire gets a call on her burner phone at two in the morning. She's already awake because she only just finished a damn hard shift and she makes it to Matt's apartment in record time. He's already started bleeding out on the couch, which is a noticeable improvement from bleeding out in a dumpster. His friend, a man who looks like he wants to drown himself in alcohol paces nervously.

Claire sighs deeply as she looks at Matt's wounds. They aren't something she can patch up easily. She looks at the friend.

"You don't tell anyone about this, understand?" she demands.

"Who the hell would I tell?" the friend says. "I don't know what crazy shit you're about to do but one more dose of unbelievable isn't gonna change anything."

"If anyone finds out about me, I'll know it was you," Claire says. She doesn't threaten.

She places a hand on Matt's forehead and stitches his wounds together. He's lost a lot of blood and she can't pull that out of nowhere, but he won't be losing more any time soon. She lets his wounds scar because he really needs to learn to stay out of trouble, but he's too Catholic for that to slow him down long.

"He's still blind, by the way," she says when she finishes. "I'm not fixing that without his permission."

She leaves before the friend can respond. She needs a stiff drink and a warm bed. She doesn't get either. What she gets is a meaty arm around her throat and a gun to her head.

"You struggle and I'll kill you," a man growls. 

Claire rolls her eyes. She can't heal herself, that's the one limit to her abilities, but this guy clearly wants her alive.

"You gave my boss a lot of trouble," the man says.

"Who's your boss?" Claire asks. Her mace is in the purse she left at home but his arm is touching her throat and it's itching like a thousand mosquito bites. His fingers twitch as he resists the urge to scratch it.

"Keep your mouth shut, whore," the man snarls. "I'm gonna make you pay for what you did."

"Are you threatening me, sir?" Claire asks. She's well past the limit of her patience.

"Shut up, bitch," the man says.

"Don't tell me to shut up," Claire admonishes. 

The man's lips start bleeding. His hand flies to his mouth and his fingers spasm, dropping the gun. But he's still holding Claire and Claire is tired and annoyed and just wants a good night's sleep and his arm, the one holding her, it begins to wither. The muscles atrophy and the bones crack and the ligaments and tendons dry up so much that even trying to move a muscle rips at them. The man tries to scream but his vocal cords have frozen and all he can do is exhale in panic. 

"Don't tell me to shut up," Claire repeats and the man nods, desperate, frantic. He's panicking, not listening to her. She shuts off the flow of adrenaline, adds just a little touch of dopamine to keep him focused. "Look at me," she orders.

The man stares her dead in the eye. Tears of fear would blur his vision if she hadn't blocked his tear ducts. She wants him to be able to see her.

"I'm getting pretty tired of the gang violence in my city," she says. "Innocent people are getting hurt and gangbangers are taking up hospital beds that could be used for honest citizens." 

The man nods again. She imagines he's praying. She supposes he has the right to do that. But however she got her powers, she's using them for good, so she doesn't think God is gonna be that inclined to help the guy out.

"I want it to stop," she says. "I'm not stupid enough to think you can stop it yourself, but I'm gonna let you go. I'm gonna let you speak. You're gonna tell all your little friends what happens when they make trouble. We clear?"

More frantic nodding. She stops the itching, stops the bleeding, knits his arm back together. Even lets the adrenaline kick back in. She pushes him gently and he lowers himself down to the ground. She locks his muscles in place.

"You'll be able to move in about an hour," she says. "You tell anyone it was me who did this and I'll do worse, but tell them that there's someone out there who can break them."

"They-they won't believe me," the man stammers.

Claire smiles. "Not at first."


	3. Chapter 3

Claire walks down the streets at her leisure. That's the advantage of being an ER nurse in Hell's Kitchen; people like to keep you around. Her scrubs are worth more than armor. She's in one of the more run down parts of town when she sees a group of muscle bound men stuff an injured pitbull into a big black van. Claire has a pretty even temper most of the time, but it's the middle of the day and she's got a gang of probably-Irish running around like they own the place. Another tall muscly guy watches the scene unfold a few feet away from her and Claire recognizes him instantly.

"You know, you've caused a lot of trouble for me," she says, wandering closer.

The man glares at her. "This your fault?" he demands.

She shakes her head. "Nah, I'm just a good Samaritan wandering through. Some kind of Samaritan."

"You know who I am?" the man asks. He looks like he might go for a gun. Claire takes a step back, folding her arms.

"I know you shot up my hospital."

The man scoffs. "I didn't hit anyone who didn't deserve it," he growls.

"You didn't put bullets in my patients, I'll give you that much," Claire says. "But we had to shut down half the ER to clean up the broken glass, not to mention the equipment damages. I don't know if you've noticed, but health care is way too expensive already and now they're gonna jack it up more to cover the costs. You may not have shot people, but I really don't like having to turn ambulances away because all of our beds are full. Understand?"

The man looks suitably chastened, but not like he has any attention of backing down. "Don't worry," he says, nodding at the house the dog disappeared from. "Those guys won't darken your doorstep." With that, he stalks off. 

Claire shrugs to herself and goes home. She takes out her burner phone and gives Matt a friendly call. Their little fling was fun, but these days he's a lot more business oriented. A favor for a favor, a tip for a tip. Claire tells him that the Irish have the Punisher and he tells her where. She meets up with him a block away from the warehouse. She wonders if there's anyone in Hell's Kitchen who doesn't have an underground base except for her. She kinda wants an underground base herself. Claire walks past the guard, circles around, takes the keys from the guard in the back. He tries to call for backup, but she fuses his kneecaps to his femurs.

"If you want me to fix you, you'd better hope I make it out of there alive," she says and leaves him to decide whether or not he wants to make the call. He doesn't.

She finds the dog easily enough, chained up and bleeding but still cheerful enough to wag its tail at her. She strokes its head gently, washing away bruises and scrapes and long buried aches and limps. By the time she's done, the dog feels as fresh and strong as a puppy. Its still too skinny for its size and she gathers it up in her arms. She holds it in one arm as she walks through the trail of limp, groaning bodies that Daredevil left behind. He certainly likes his spinal injuries. One of the thugs even goes blind from it and Claire laughs as she works. 

Maybe she shouldn't have laughed. The men crawling towards her start trying to crawl away. It doesn't matter. They aren't fast enough either way to get very far. Some she heals completely, to get the others to safety. The others, she picks apart like meat from a bone, converting blood and broken flesh into muscle to beef up her new dog. When she has him back to full health, she leaves. The dog didn't do anything to deserve his injuries, not like the men crying in fear behind her. They really shouldn't cry, she thinks. They're already dehydrated.

She finds the Punisher in a cemetery, alone and bleeding badly.

"You saved the dog," he says.

She nods. "He's a good dog. Better than most people. I'll look after him for you."

"Thanks," he says. They lapse into an awkward silence. "Red left when he heard you coming. Said you could take things from here. The cops are on their way."

"You're not running?" Claire asks.

The Punisher shrugs. "Can't."

Claire sees it now, the mangled remains of his foot. It's the worst injury he has that she can see but she doesn't doubt that his ribs are broken too. "Ah."

She puts the dog down and he wanders over to the Punisher, who strokes him tenderly. "I took him from the Irish," he says. "They were fighting him. They won't get to fight dogs anymore." He tilts his head and looks at her closely. "You one of those types who think everyone deserves to live?" he asks.

"I'm a nurse," Claire says. "It's my job to save lives."

"That's not an answer."

"I know."

The dog wanders off but she whistles and he comes back.

"They deserved to die," the Punisher says.

Claire hums idly. "Sure. But did you deserve to kill them?"

"Doesn't matter if I deserve it or not," the Punisher says. "Someone has to kill them. It might as well be me."

Claire almost asks him if he puts his trust in the justice system but she doesn't trust herself to keep a straight face. "And you gotta shoot up a hospital to do it," she says.

"Necessary loss," the Punisher says. "I didn't kill anyone who didn't deserve it."

"Not directly," Claire says. "I'm not here to argue about your morals, just your methods. I don't like people shooting up my hospital. I really shouldn't have to explain to you why you shouldn't do that."

"I killed a murderer," the Punisher says.

"You made my hospital unsafe," Claire retorts. "How many innocent people, abuse survivors, beaten kids, are gonna stay home and bleed out because they know they're abuser can reach them at the hospital? That blood is on your hands."

"If I didn't do it, someone else would have," the Punisher says.

"You're right," Claire admits. "But you're the one who did it. You get to live with the consequences."

She hears sirens coming and she picks up the dog again. She looks down on the Punisher, broken and bleeding. It would be so easy, so painfully easy, to reach down and touch him. Heal him and force him into her debt or break him beyond any hope of repair. One small motion and she would own his life and death. She looks at him, broken and bleeding from the horrifying torture visited on him by the Irish. She could undo all of that, make their cruelty in vain. She could add to it, making the Punisher feel the pain of those he had murdered. She looks down on him, broken and bleeding.

She walks away.

**Author's Note:**

> Claire's powers are based off a character from the web serial Worm which I can not recommend enough. parahumans.wordpress.com Seriously, give it a read.


End file.
